Thursday, November 27, 2008

Iranian filmmaker and journalist Marjan Riahi is slated to serve on the jury of Grand Off - European Off Film Awards in Warsaw, Poland.Riahi will be joined by directors and artists from Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Hungary, the UK, Spain, Croatia, Luxembourg, France, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Russia and Ukraine.

Marjan Riahi's first directing experience was a documentary called Eternal Mothers, which was screened in numerous Iranian and International Festivals. It received the 2002 Best Short Documentary Award of Dubai Short Film Festival.She has also judged at the 2007 Kabul International Documentary and Short Film Festival in Afghanistan.

This year's European Off Film Awards has also nominated Iran's Angels Die in Soil directed by Babak Amini, Feminine, Masculine directed by Sadaf Foroughi, and Shadows of Silence directed by Shahriar Pourseidian for the Best Non-European Film award.The Grand Off - European Off Film Awards are granted in the categories of directing, scriptwriting, editing, cinematography, best actor, best actress, best feature film, best documentary and best animation.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Kourosh Ziabari - Atlantic Free Press: In our outlandish and bizarre era where the mogul warmongers are bombarding the innocent children and women, corporation media are planning to overthrow the popular and independent governments in developing countries and the excess of financial crisis is harming thousands of people worldwide, the most valuable thing that one can do is to find ways for upraising mutual understandings, friendships, cognations and stable peaces.

Finding shortcuts to escape from the brawls and tumults in the quarrelsome and chaotic world of 21st century is not actually an easy-to-do job, but would be an effective idea to highlight similarities and emphasize amiabilities so as to get rid of hostilities which are surrounding us increasingly.

Iran and South Korea are the notable examples of two close continental allies which are both among the developing countries with flourishing economies and bright prospect of joining to the throng of developed countries.

Giving prominence to such cordial relations that have never been flawed despite of the treacherous strives of inimical forces behind the scenes, could be exemplary and inspiring for the other nations that have already engaged in close relationships with other neighbors or friends; relations which are constructive for the two sides, moreover non-threatening for the other nations.

Historically, Islamic Republic of Iran has been a major ally of Eastern Asian countries. It still is. And it has particularly boosted its economic, scientific and cultural ties with South Korea, as an influential regional power in the past years.

Iran, as a giant Persian Gulf energy producer, counts on Korea as a main destination for its oil and gas exports. The two sides have also shown an eagerness to participate in each other's industrial projects.

The current figure of bilateral transactions between Iran and Korea stands on $9 Billion, which has been anticipated to exceed $10 billion within the next months.

Furthermore, cultural relations between two countries are increasingly being expanded as a source of mutual interest, as the recently held "Glory of Persia" exhibition in Seoul reveals.

Iran has also signed several contracts with Korean TV stations to translate and broadcast the popular Korean TV series "Jewel in the Palace," the most predominant of popular foreign TV series in Iran. Lee Young Ae has said she was honored to have such multitudinous fans in Iran.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: "It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."

Among the noisy hollers of jubilant, excited swarms who had been gathered in Chicago to celebrate the official announcement of President-elect Barack Obama's victory in competition with the old-hand Sen. John McCain during a 21 month campaign for the 2008 US Presidential elections, yells of "Yes, we can" by the excited, hopeful Americans raised the expectations for a defining – at least – four years epoch of repose and tranquility under a moderate, pacifist 47-year old who is said to be going to alleviate the flames of hostility and animosity blazed by the warmonger ex-President Bush worldwide.

Almost everyday during the past 8 years while the republican George Walker Bush was holding office in the White House, you could probably hear up-to-date, breaking news regarding a raid by the US Air Forces or military troops on diverse parts of the world, one after another; so far the sacrificed victims are Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq who experienced the catastrophic situation of their territorial integrity being violated, while the others such as Belarus, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran underwent the worst types of soft-strikes: financial embargo and psychological war.

Perhaps, that was an inseparable division of Bush's foreign policy to cut the mutual ties off with the entire world – except the Western Europe – to meet the ambitions of Israel and accomplish an ideological mission to expand the global Zionism; however the mission – which is not clearly determined that whether is accomplished yet or not - cost a lot for the people of White House and the nation of America, as well.

In the other words, US government dwindled or incised its relations with bunches of countries rashly, under the incumbency of President Bush; countries which he assumed as tiny, terrorist, unimportant or hostile. Meanwhile, he boosted the connections with a confined number of countries including UK, France, Germany and Israel as major allies to continue preserving the tyrannical stance of USA toward the rest of world.

The inimical posture toward the under-developing countries that consist a number of about two third of world population, allowed the White House to hold up any military or financial measure against them whenever its became "necessary", specially about those countries with the majority of Muslims, and that caused intrinsic outrages and hatred against US among the masses of people, beside of incarnating the country as a despotic tyranny in the age of freedom and democracy.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Kourosh Ziabari - World Cup Blog: Since there are various phases of struggling with initial difficulties, promoting yourself as a newbie is not often an easy-to-do job.

First of all, you should prove that your appearance or presence would not disturb the stable situation or dwindle the settled tranquility, then you should gain the trust of your audiences so as to make them believe your thoughts and finally you should interact with them to see whether you were successful in communicating your messages or not.

Athough I am not a newbie to writing or journalism, I feel today, I am rookie for WCB where I have been a reader for in the past 2 years, but am going to experience writing in it for the very first time which is both interesting and sensitive.

I am not known for my sport pieces or commentaries, even though I write them occasionally, but I am a regular soccer fan, and you can test my football memory by asking about the catastrophe of Mark Vivian Foe’s death to the famous freekick goal which Ronaldinho put in the box of David Seaman during a 2002 World Cup quarter-finals match with England.

However, that’s my duty to thank my dear compatriot and old-hand football writer Afshin Afshar who accepted warmly to share with me and also Daryl Grove who helped me brotherly to find my way through World Cup Blog.

Here, where I will be writing once or twice a week, you can find a new perspective toward the Iranian football and incidents around the “green rectangle” of Persia.

While I know that writing about the football of a country, which I believe is the most misrepresented country in the world, is not a simple business, but I assure you that Iran World Cup blog will become a source of learning more about the concealed culture and public lifestyle of this ancient land’s people through the means of football! If you don’t believe, follow me in the next sessions!

Thanks to the almighty God, some of my articles, online activities and blog posts have attained international popularity and feedback in non-English media during the past months and been translated in various languages such as Italian, French, Deutsch, Spanish and some non-Latin dialects.

Intrinsically, it would be a great favor for any journalist and blogger, and in a general term, for any content-producer (including painters, filmmakers, musicians, academicians etc) to find his works attracted the global community, and I feel in such a way, too; thus I collected some of the translations of my works in non-English media which are listed below. I will keep them in my history and always refer to them as the first sparks of my global appearance!

MediaLeft - Kourosh Ziabari: "It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."

Among the noisy hollers of jubilant, excited swarms who had been gathered in Chicago to celebrate the official announcement of President-elect Barack Obama's victory in competition with the old-hand Sen. John McCain during a 21 month campaign for the 2008 US Presidential elections, yells of "Yes, we can" by the excited, hopeful Americans raised the expectations for a defining – at least – four years epoch of repose and tranquility under a moderate, pacifist 47-year old who is said to be going to alleviate the flames of hostility and animosity blazed by the warmonger ex-President Bush worldwide.

Almost everyday during the past 8 years while the republican George Walker Bush was holding office in the White House, you could probably hear up-to-date, breaking news regarding a raid by the US Air Forces or military troops on diverse parts of the world, one after another; so far the sacrificed victims are Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq who experienced the catastrophic situation of their territorial integrity being violated, while the others such as Belarus, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran underwent the worst types of soft-strikes: financial embargo and psychological war.

Perhaps, that was an inseparable division of Bush's foreign policy to cut the mutual ties off with the entire world – except the Western Europe – to meet the ambitions of Israel and accomplish an ideological mission to expand the global Judaism; however the mission – which is not clearly determined that whether is accomplished yet or not - cost a lot for the people of the White House and the nation of America, as well.

In other words, the US government dwindled or incised its relations with bunches of countries rashly, under the incumbency of President Bush; countries which he assumed as tiny, terrorist, unimportant or hostile. Meanwhile, he boosted the connections with a confined number of countries including UK, France, Germany and Israel as major allies to continue preserving the tyrannical stance of USA toward the rest of world.

Quoting from MediaLeft: Born in 1991, Kourosh Ziabari is a freelance journalist and writer, the author of book "7+1", a collection of his interviews with 7 contemporary Iranian authors and a contributing writer for magazines of Netherlands, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, South Korea, Belgium, Germany, UK and the US. He is Persian and lives in Rasht, in Northern Iran.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

... So how does the election of Barack Obama look to people outside the United States — particularly, how does it look to a young Iranian living in Iran? In this Guest Voice post, Iranian freelance writer and blogger Kourosh Ziabari looks at how the U.S was perceived in some parts of the world under President George Bush and what Obama’s election could mean...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Counter Currents - Kourosh Ziabari: According to UN regulations for the standardization of geographical places names, any attempt to alter or distort a historical registered name is denied and branded as "unlawful'. Every city, province, island, river, strait, mountain and gulf enjoys a special, exclusive name and each name narrates a story about the origins and history of its owner.

For example, the phrase "Indian ocean" tells us that the southeastern region of Asia was under the domination of Indian empire historically, or the name "Caspian sea" describes that the main inhabitants of Southern Russian and northern Iran region were the ancient tribe of "Caspi" historically. This shows that the originality and unity of geographical names must be kept and dispersion is not acceptable in this matter.

Let's give a simple example. My name is Kourosh, but what happens if each of my friends decide to call me by his desired name? Maybe I would get 20 names if I had 20 friends, and clearly it is neither logical nor practical. In an upper level, imagine that we assign two or three names to every country and request of the media and people to call these destinations by all of the assigned names, or that the different states designate their arbitrary name to the neighboring countries. In this case, we would have a world with 200 countries and thousands of names for them. Would be the world livable in such circumstances?

However, I propounded all of the above topics to mention about a critical issue which is offending the international community these days, the project of Persian Gulf's name distortion. According to the legal and historical evidences, the body water which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula is known as Persian Gulf since the ancient eras until now, lacking any synonym or alternative name. This name has been used in historical maps, articles and epilogues for more than 1 million times, a most prominent of them belonging to the Greek Herodotus.

The Greek historian in his book -History of Herodotus, 440 B.C- has repeatedly mentioned the term "Sinus Persicus" which is a Latin form of "Persian Gulf", meanwhile he emphasized that the "Arabian Gulf" is a historical name which stands for the today's "Red Sea". Additionally, we find the term "Persian Gulf" referring to the body water separating the plateau of Persia from the Arabian Peninsula in the books and maps of numerous Arabian voyagers and scholars including Ibn-e-Battuta.

Regarding the history of Persian Empire which dates back to 5000 B.C and known as one of the first civilizations in the world's history, Persian Gulf, Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Iran which is currently referred as the "Gulf of Oman" were all under the sovereignty of Persia, a great monarchy which was consisted of various states such as Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Emirates, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Parts of India.

All of these states separated from Iran during the past millennium and shaped their own, independent governments, the latest of them was UAE which toke independence from Iran in the year 1971.However, I am not looking to bother you by substantiating the historical and scientific legitimacy of Persian Gulf's name.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

A high-ranking delegation of some six American university deans, headed by the chancellor of "Association of American Universities" held talks with Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad-Mehdi Zahedi here on Sunday.

The visit of American delegation held upon the invitation of dean of Sharif University of Technology Saeed Sohrab-Pour.The visit aims to prepare the ground for exchange of university students and professors between the two countries.The American academics will visit some other Iranian universities during their stay in Iran.The group will also visit the historical city of Isfahan and Isfahan University of Technology.The American deans include Prof. Robert M. Berdahl as the president of AAU, Prof. David J.Skorton as the president of Cornell University, Prof. David W. Leebron as the president of Rice University, Prof. J. Bernard Machen as the president of University of Florida, Prof. C.D. Mote as the president of University of Maryland, Prof. Larry Vanderhoef as the president of California University and Prof. Jared L. Cohon as the president of Carnegie Mellon University.

Three feature-length Iranian films are slated to be screened at the weeklong Kolkata International Forum of New Cinema 2008 in India.

Eternal Children by Pouran Derakhshandeh, The Green Fire by Mohammad Reza Aslani and The Persian Carpet directed by 15 Iranian filmmakers will be screened in the event's Panorama of world Cinema section.

Eternal Children (2007) has been screened at numerous international events including the first Iranian film week in Varna, Bulgaria and the 6th Third Eye Asian Film Festival in India.

The Persian Carpet is directed by a group of leading Iranian filmmakers including Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Bahman Farmanara and Dariush Mehrjui who have depicted the issue from their point of view.

The film has been screened at the 18th annual Celebration of Iranian Cinema held in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Sweden's 2008 Uppsala International Film Festival and many other international events.

Held on the sidelines of the 2008 Kolkata Film Festival, the International Forum of New Cinema kicked off on Nov. 14 and will run until Nov. 20, 2008.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The sole encyclopedia on Persian Gulf will go online in April 2009, providing a chance for researchers to use it in their research works.

Work on the electronic encyclopedia began by Abu Reyhan Birouni Research Center, affiliated to the Center for Islamic Encyclopedia, last year.

Commenting on the project, head of the center, Kianoush Kiani said that the electronic version of the encyclopedia will officially go online on Persian Gulf Day (April 29).

The encyclopedia has been designed in two sections of general information and entries. Four volumes have been scheduled to cover extensive articles on Persian Gulf while another four volumes are to feature entries, 1,500 of which have so far been identified, he said, the Islamic republic news agency reported.The eight-volume encyclopedia will take four years to complete, Kiani said.

TEHRAN Times, Nov. 15 (MNA) – Australia is interested in expanding economic and industrial ties with Iran, Australia’s new ambassador to Tehran, Marc Innes-Brown, said on Saturday in the historical city of Isfahan.

Eslamian said that Isfahan is the second industrial hub of Iran.Iran’s stone industry and many of the country’s major industrial plants and foodstuff production units are based in Isfahan, he added.Eslamian also urged officials to make efforts to expand bilateral economic cooperation

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Atlantic Free Press - Kourosh Ziabari: Among the noisy hollers of jubilant, excited swarms who had been gathered in Chicago to celebrate the official announcement of President-elect Barack Obama's victory in competition with the old-hand Sen. John McCain during a 21 month campaign for the 2008 US Presidential elections, yells of "Yes, we can" by the excited, hopeful Americans raised the expectations for a defining – at least – four years epoch of repose and tranquility under a moderate, pacifist 47-year old who is said to be going to alleviate the flames of hostility and animosity blazed by the warmonger ex-President Bush worldwide.

Almost everyday during the past 8 years while the republican George Walker Bush was holding office in the White House, you could probably hear up-to-date, breaking news regarding a raid by the US Air Forces or military troops on diverse parts of the world, one after another; so far the sacrificed victims are Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq who experienced the catastrophic situation of their territorial integrity being violated, while the others such as Belarus, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran underwent the worst types of soft-strikes: financial embargo and psychological war.

Perhaps, that was an inseparable division of Bush's foreign policy to cut the mutual ties off with the entire world – except the Western Europe – to meet the ambitions of Israel and accomplish an ideological mission to expand the global Judaism; however the mission – which is not clearly determined that whether is accomplished yet or not - cost a lot for the people of White House and the nation of America, as well.

About Me

Born in 1991, freelance journalist and writer. the author of book "7+1" and a contributing writer for magazines of Netherlands, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, South Korea, Belgium, Germany, UK and the US.